Photo Mechanic > General Discussion

adding metadata for film camera scans?

(1/2) > >>

syncrasy:
I know I'm not the first person to ask this, but I couldn't find a similar question on the forum.

How do I add metadata about camera model, film type, and lens to a file from a scanned film negative? I want to keep intact the digital acquisition source info (scanner, DSLR "scan") in EXIF to conform to standards. Are there any best practices or workarounds in IPTC, EXIF, or XMP? (e.g, IPTC isn't normally used for camera info, but perhaps one field could be used as a workaround). Are there empty fields in EXIF that could be edited? How would XMP be used? Is Photo Mechanic able to do any of this?

Hayo Baan:
You can of course use any of the fields you can edit within PM to store this kind of information, but I guess you don't want that. So you'll have to resort to e.g. exiftool to do so. I'm, however, not aware of any dedicated “standard” fields you could use for e.g. Film Type, but you could either store that as part of another field, or even create your own (XMP) field.

syncrasy:

--- Quote from: Hayo Baan on July 23, 2019, 06:30:44 AM ---You can of course use any of the fields you can edit within PM to store this kind of information, but I guess you don't want that.
--- End quote ---
Correct. I'm trying to prepare the images for a client that requires conforming to metadata standards. This means not using fields for a purpose for which they were not intended. (Except as a last resort.)


--- Quote from: Hayo Baan on July 23, 2019, 06:30:44 AM ---So you'll have to resort to e.g. exiftool to do so. I'm, however, not aware of any dedicated “standard” fields you could use for e.g. Film Type, but you could either store that as part of another field, or even create your own (XMP) field.

--- End quote ---
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the process of creating custom XMP fields. Are you suggesting this could be done in exiftool? How would the client read/extract a custom XMP field?

(Side note: I use Media Pro for my DAM/metadata tool, and currently have the camera information in a custom field. I know Media Pro has fairly sophisticated XMP features but I've never used them, and don't know how a client would extract the data. Perhaps I should ask on the Media Pro forum.)

Mick O (Camera Bits):
This is more of a philosophical answer, but I used to use EXIFtool to add camera make and camera model to my film scans. I've never heard of any guidelines for the EXIF fields for MAKE and MODEL not be used to record the make and model of the actual camera that was used.  (I'm not saying some guidelines like that don't exist somewhere, but I think they would go against the spirit of EXIF as I understand it: MAKE and MODEL have always intended to record the make and model of the camera taking the image, not the scanner used to scan the film.)   Since there is already a "EXIF:FileSource" field where 1 = "Film Scanner" that was always sufficient for me.  There is also a "UserComments" EXIF field if I wanted to put more info there, I would suggest considering that.

Free free to disregard any of this :-)

Mick

Edited to add: If you're using ExifTool to add info to the "UserComments" EXIF field, you can then use the {comment} variable in Photo Mechanic to place that information into any of the IPTC fields available in PM. 

syncrasy:
Thanks for the ideas, Mick.

My client, a university archival/historical library, prefers that I retain the digital source EXIF data for MAKE and MODEL. In other words, they want the scanner information. This makes sense because the provenance of a visual item is extremely important for academic researchers. But the client does not have a specific recommendation for adding film camera metadata, just that I use "an appropriate field for IPTC or even XMP."

Regarding the EXIF workarounds... I can see a User Comments field in my EXIF editor but I don't see a FileSource field. (I am using EXIF Editor for Mac, which is a WYSIYG tool and doesn't show the underlying code; I don't have EXIFtool. Yet). The only "source" related field is the IPTC "Source" field, which I believe is intended for a person's name (e.g., original copyright holder, agency, or provider of the image), not a device. Perhaps EXIFtool has access to more or different fields. (?)

In any case, if I use either the EXIF UserComments or FileSource field, neither of which is displayed in most software including PM, how would my client see/extract the information in those fields? (Assume in this example I won't use the PM {comment} variable to put the info in IPTC.)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page